John Maynard      

John Maynard was a bowler who epitomised the era of out-and-out Caribbean pace, genuinely fast and aggressive. "If you can't get them out, you gotta hurt them till they get out," he once said. "I think I've pretty much broken every part of the body so far, from the teeth to the jaw, to the nose, to the ribs, to the arms and the toes. I never worry about hurting them at the time."

Despite a decent career record, he only played 13 first-class matches and, remarkably, failed to win a Test call-up despite playing at a time West Indies were on the wane - that might have owed as much to the fact he came from the cricketing outpost of Nevis rather than one of the bigger islands. Perhaps his finest hour came in a non first-class warm-up at the start of England's 1993-94 tour when he gave them a torrid time at the start of their tour.

More than a decade later, aged 37, he returned to make a real impression in the inaugural Stanford 20/20, taking 4 for 9 against rivals St Kitts and picking up a $25,000 Man-of-the-Match cheque in the process.

Barely a newspaper article on him appears with his nickname - the Dentist - being brought up. It referred to his tendency to remove batsmen's teeth rather than his off-field occupation. In 2007 he told Cricinfo's Andrew Miller how it came about. "I was playing for Nevis against Antigua many years ago, and there was this bloke playing for Antigua called Zorah Barthley, who was the West Indies youth team captain. Nevis had never beaten Antigua outright in Antigua, but that afternoon, we took the new ball and he was playing really late. And I thought to myself, if he's playing late now I've got to rough him up early in the morning. First thing in the morning he nicks one but the umps didn't send him on his way, and that wound me up a bit. And so the next ball was four yards quicker than anything I've ever bowled. He shaped to hook, and his teeth went flying all over the place, and it was a funny old sight. But he was the man who made the Dentist really. I couldn't have done it without him."
Martin Williamson

Mar 25, 2007

John "the Dentist" Maynard

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